<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Performance Review by Chairman</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020814">Performance Review</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairman/pseuds/Chairman'>Chairman</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hades (Video Game 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Universe, Charon goes on strike, Established Relationship, M/M, getting your work relationship approved by HR, prachettian nonsense, the fates as the underworld's HR</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:21:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,879</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020814</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairman/pseuds/Chairman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hades is not happy with Charon and Hermes' relationship. In retaliation, Charon goes on strike. </p><p>Or, why should the ferryman be allowed to love?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charon/Hermes (Hades Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>176</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Performance Review</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Partially inspired by Terry Pratchett's <i>Reaper Man</i>, I really wanted Charon to plead his case on why someone so close to an Abstract Concept should be allowed to love. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lord Hades had built his desk tall by intention, so that all sniveling shades that dared entreat him for fairness or favors must strain their necks to gaze upon his grim visage. Though Charon toward above even the tallest shade, he still had to raise his head to look at the God of the Underworld.</p><p>Not to be cowed so easily, Charon regarded his nominal boss through the broad brim of his hat. His glowing eyes piercing through the empty sockets that were his eyes. He knew Hades feared his countenance. It was an advantage he leveraged at every opportunity. Serves the pompous upstart right, to lay claim to what was rightfully his mother’s realm.</p><p>The two chthonic entities regarded each other with mutual disdain. Hades gripped his quill with one hand and rested the other upon a stack of parchment as a very effective paperweight. His entire body bristled with anger, sending vibrations down the two long strands of his beard.</p><p>Charon, in contrast, stood still as stone.</p><p>“I thought you to be above this foolishness,” Hades grumbled, his deep voice resonating both through the air and through the tiles of the House, such that one heard him both through the ears and through the soles of the feet. “Of all of Nyx’s offspring, I thought you knew the boundaries of your duties best.”</p><p>Charon barely graced the statement with a tilt of his head.</p><p>“And yet I have before me irrefutable evidence that you—ferryman of the dead—have taken a lover? Have taken <em>Hermes, an Olympian</em>, as a lover.”</p><p>Charon gave a shrug. He did not see the point in hiding the truth.</p><p>Hades slammed his fist down on the table. “You are bound first and foremost to the River Styx, and to the land of the dead. I will not let such a…such a <em>dalliance</em> continue between Olympus and the Underworld.”</p><p>This statement did rile Charon up, and he let out an angry groan in protest, deep purple vapors escaping from his bony mouth to the rafters above. Though the shades cowered at the sound of Hades’ voice, it did not inspire as much fear as that of the Stygian boatman. At least Hades was comprehensible; at least he expressed direct wants and needs, rejections and affirmations, while Charon only moaned as he held out his hand, his only scrutable ask known to both the living and the dead.</p><p>An obol for a ride in his boat. Just payment for services rendered.</p><p>In that same manner, Charon held out his open palm towards Hades, whose eyes widened in confusion before narrowing in anger.</p><p>“What are you getting at, boatman?”</p><p>Charon gently curled his fingers, relishing the irony in his futile gesture. What <em>was</em> he expecting? For Hades to give him coin, perhaps as payment for the eons he labored on the River Styx? Or perhaps a scroll detailing his termination, given his so-called dalliance with Hermes.</p><p>Neither seemed likely, given how miserly Hades was.</p><p>“Hhhhhhgggh,” Charon let out another moan, shorter and higher than his last. A laugh, though Hades would never know.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of his mother, standing guard in her preferred spot in the East Wing. She peered at him with her deep dark eyes, mysterious and ineffable as the night sky. Charon had long stopped caring about what she thought of him; to Charon, her approval was merely an idle curiosity, and he cared for it as much as the gossip Hermes brought with him from the surface.</p><p>Nyx valued independence of her children. And what is more emblematic of independence than exceeding one’s intended purpose? Charon was a spade that one day up and went to tend to the fields itself, no longer needing to be held in a farmer’s hand.</p><p>A spade that kept at its purpose but found joy in unexpected places. The sound of rain against leaves in summer, perhaps, or the way sunlight danced on banks of snow.</p><p>Charon had better things to do than listen to Hades pontificate about his supposed authority over the Underworld. The Stygian boatman turned and headed back towards the Styx where he belonged.</p><p>Hades would not let him leave in peace. “We are not done here, Charon,” he bellowed.</p><p>“Hhhueeeeeeghh,” Charon glanced back and let Hades know that, on the other hand, Charon <em>was</em> done and eager to return to his post.</p><p>“Don’t think your impertinence will go unpunished, boatman.” Hades reached out his hand and the elder sigil formed at his palm. A second one formed at Charon’s feet, but he was not afraid; he was more of this realm than Hades was, and if Hades thought it possible to trap Charon with his own father’s power, then he was sorely mistaken.</p><p>Charon did not move, but still the winds stirred around him as the sigil called for something—if not living, then material. As the sigils disappeared, Hades held Charon’s oar in his hand.</p><p>Hades was not the type to gloat. The weight of the oar seemed heavy in his hand, and he seemed more tired than triumphant as he spoke again.</p><p>“I don’t understand this newfound sentimentality of yours, Charon, but I cannot let it continue as it stands. It’s Hermes or your job.”</p><p>Charon considered the finality of this gesture. Hades probably expected him to rush back to his great desk, prostrate himself and beg to be allowed to continue his duty; the only purpose given his skeletal eternal frame.</p><p>Had it been a different time—before he had met Hermes and allowed himself to be changed by the messenger god—Charon would have clung desperately to his purpose, to his connection to the rivers of the underworld and his endless journey up and down their banks. He may have swallowed his pride and genuflected before his nominal lord. But not anymore.</p><p>“Love gives mortals strength,” Hermes once said, perhaps quoting Aphrodite. Love gave Charon strength too, enough to walk away and not look back. Hades would soon realize that this was not a furlough; it was a strike.</p><p>Hades watched him leave and continued to stare at the pool of Styx long after his form was swallowed by the red familiar hands. Of all the denizens of the underworld, he would never have expected Charon to value something higher than mortal gold.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Charon kept to his word. No shades were ferried down the River Styx, instead all of them, rich and poor alike, wandered about the shores at the temple, their route to their final resting spot halted with no transfers or refunds.</p><p>The doors to the Temple of Styx opened, and a flurry of orange signaled Hermes’ arrival with another cadre of shades, fewer in number than the usual fair. Hermes floated above the throng, directing the crowd with his caduceus.</p><p>He caught sight of Charon at his usual site at the Temple, selling his wares to the growing number of restless shades that lingered on the shores of the Styx. Hermes rose up higher in the air and flew towards his professional associate, shirking all personal boundaries to peer under his wide-brimmed hat.</p><p>“Well it’s been some time, my dear boatman, and I must say I’m impressed that you’ve held out this long. Thought you’d be going mad without your job to tide you over.”</p><p>Charon glanced fondly at the little god, rolling his eyes as he put up a placard at the shopfront signaling that the establishment was closed for the time being. Hermes took his cue and settled in comfortably, hands behind his back and legs stretched out as if on an invisible hammock. Even in shadow, Hermes glowed a gentle sunset yellow, as if his body were so fast it already held traces of tomorrow’s dawn.</p><p>“Never figured you for the idle type, though I guess you’re staying busy focusing on the merchandise. Still keeping up commerce in all the other hellish places?”</p><p>Charon gave an affirmative.</p><p>“Figures you didn’t want to lose all that extra income,” Hermes smirked. “Though I wonder, how are you dealing with transport now that the old boat is out of the question?”</p><p>Charon blinked and gestured to himself. Surely Hermes knew the extent of his powers went beyond a mere vessel.</p><p>“Right, right, but are you just carrying everything around in a sack? I hear a god up north does similar things, but it seems a hassle. I guess you have enough stubbornness to see it through.” Hermes shifted and brought his hand up to Charon’s face, centimeters away from where his nose would be. “I should have expected it, though. I pinned you as stubborn from the start.”</p><p>Charon reached up to grab Hermes’ hand, holding it in his own as he traced small circles in the well-worn, calloused palm. A hand fitting for the god of merchants, travelers, and thieves—god of misfits and riffraff, trickster and messenger both. Beyond being an aspect of his chosen domains, or a ruler of a perceived realm, Hermes’ godhood, like Charon’s, involved actual work.</p><p>Charon could not imagine falling in love with any other god, Olympian or otherwise. How natural it was, for these two laborers to find each other at the border between life and death.</p><p>Hermes did not withdraw his hand, instead opting to press kisses to Charon’s fingers and the various rings that adorned them.</p><p>“I didn’t you to be so stubborn for my sake,” he whispered, his cheerful veneer dropping slightly to something more vulnerable.</p><p>Charon sighed and brought their hands close to his face, to the hollow of his cheek. Hermes should never doubt how much he mattered to him.</p><p>Hermes laughed and finally freed his hand from Charon’s gentle grasp. Reaching into his satchel, he rummaged for a bit before finding what he wanted and tossing it at Charon, who caught it easily in one hand.</p><p>It was an apple. Charon looked over at Hermes quizzically. Did he think the chthonic god didn’t know what an apple was?</p><p>“Cut it open there, boss.”</p><p>There was no need to find a knife. Charon simply held it in both his hands and gave it a twist and squeeze. The fruit came apart easily, two perfect symmetrical halves, red skin giving way to pale yellow flesh.</p><p>“No seeds,” Hermes pointed out. “And you know, it’s the funniest thing, but lately I haven’t been able to bless any couples with fertility. I hear their blessings, sure, but when I try to help a conception, zip, nada, putz,” Hermes blew a raspberry to emphasize his point. “Artemis has been having the same trouble too. It seems like nothing new is being born—wonder if something’s happened to disturb the balance of things.” Hermes elbowed Charon at this, some playfulness returning to him, though there was clearly something else on his mind.</p><p>Charon let out a small grumble as he turned from Hermes back to his coin, which he began sorting into neat stacks.</p><p>Hermes laughed, the same airy laugh that made Charon first question his implacability. A laugh that carried with it a thousand memories of the living, from the first cries of a newborn to the last breath of the old and everything in between.</p><p>“Remember that time—gosh, it must be centuries ago now—when I couldn’t stand being a god anymore and just lazed around in Elysium with you? All those shades stuck in the mortal world with nowhere to go…poor Artemis and Apollo had to be sent to hunt me down. Wasn’t that a hoot.” He bent down and picked up the pieces of apple that had fallen from Charon’s interest onto the ground.  “Isn’t that something, boss?  When I don’t work, there’s an abundance of ghosts. When you don’t, there’s a dearth of life.”</p><p>He joined the halves together once more and set them in front of Charon. The apple held for an instant, before falling down into pieces again.</p><p>“You’ve made your point already,” he said softly. “The mortal realm is a mess—the underworld is a mess too, from what Thanatos tells me. I know you miss your job, your boat, your oar. There has to be a better way for old uncle to approve of us.”</p><p>Charon considered the apple before him. He could probably sell it for a good price among the shades, given the luxury fresh food represented. Yet already the flesh was beginning to brown, the skin to wrinkle. What a pity that one could not simply stitch the apple back together and make it whole again.</p><p>Stitch…in the distance, Charon heard the running wheel of a loom in use. It was omnipresent, but for a moment he was keenly aware of all the precarious threads holding the universe together, keeping stories in place.</p><p>Perhaps…there was another way.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>As expected, Lord Hades was not happy with the proposition.</p><p>“You wish to go over my authority? Your impertinence must have rubbed off on him, Nephew,” he grumbled, glaring at Charon and Hermes who stood before him. In a stroke of diplomatic brilliance, the three of them met in the garden: neutral ground.</p><p>“It was all the big boatman’s idea,” Hermes shrugged. “I’m just here as a witness. An interested third party.”</p><p>“<em>Pah</em>, I know exactly why you’re here. How did your lord father react when you told him of your choice of mate?”</p><p>Hermes’ wings retracted against his head for a moment, before relaxing back into their natural state. “He doesn’t know what he doesn’t need to know. And I can’t imagine him of all people scolding me for taste.”</p><p>Hades glanced at Charon, who was more than happy to be nothing more than a tree in this conversation. “You must admit that you are not the most conventional of couples.”</p><p>“What can I say, I like the tall and silent type.”</p><p>Ignoring the last statement, Hades turned to Charon, his expression changing from annoyance to a more serious version of it. “And you are certain about this, Charon? The decision will be final.”</p><p>Charon simply gestured towards his former employer. Did Hades accept the conditions as well?</p><p>“I am not one to tempt the Fates,” he said grimly. “But as this will end in you resuming your post either way, I suppose I must learn to live with it.”</p><p>“It seems like this situation is a win-win for you there, unks,” Hermes chimed in. “I don’t see why you had to escalate it this far.”</p><p>He was met with a glare from his uncle. “I have every reason to distrust you, Olympian. Know that I only agree to even giving you—the both of you—the slightest chance in darkness is because the world has deteriorated into its current state. Otherwise, I would be keeping <em>you</em>,” he pointed at Hermes, “as far away from the Styx as possible, and you,” he pointed at Charon, “focused on your duties on it. Do I make myself clear?”</p><p>“Verily,” smiled Hermes, “I hear your compromise loud and clear.”</p><p>Hades’ scowl deepened, something that should have been impossible given that it already extended to the tips of his beard. Charon let out a small laugh, a thin stream of smoke floating from his mouth up towards the ceiling of the underworld.</p><p>Hermes caught Charon’s reaction and beamed. It was clear from the brevity of his quips that despite his confident exterior, deep down the messenger was terrified of what was about to happen next.</p><p>Hades summoned Charon’s oar and returned it to him. The ferryman gripped the worn wooden handle gingerly at first, his hands settling into familiar grooves. He did not realize the extent to which he had missed carrying it, the comfortable weight of it always at his side. It was like being reunited with a part of oneself.</p><p>Charon longed to return once more to his ferry, to drive the oar into the welcoming waters of the River Styx, but he first needed to uphold his side of the bargain.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Though it was a common misconception, the Fates did not, in fact, dwell in the center of the Earth.</p><p>The Fates dwelt at the center of all things.</p><p>Still, as the Underworld shifted to accommodate the changing times, Charon found himself traveling downwards until down and up had no meaning. He was in complete darkness, which was the same as being in complete light.</p><p>Slowly, three presences made themselves known. Three sisters, the eldest children of Nyx, born when the world had no use for either Death or Sleep. In the beginning, after the Earth and Sky, after Night, there was Fate.</p><p>The story of things. What must be begun and eventually ended. Endless threads of different lengths, representing everything from the gust of wind made by a bird wing to the death of the universe itself.</p><p>Charon bowed deeply, though there was no need for such things. No language existed here; it merely followed suit.</p><p>The three of them communicated as one:</p><p>
  <em>What a surprise, brother. We have been expecting you for some time. Or no time at all.</em>
</p><p>Charon nodded. There was little need for needless pleasantries when they were all distilled into their most essential forms.</p><p>Charon cut straight to the chase. He reached into his robes to retrieve one of Hermes’ plumes; a token of luck he took with him to this ordeal. His sisters regarded it with curiosity.</p><p>He was not made for love. Like many of Nyx’s brood, he was created for a specific purpose: to ferry souls across the rivers of the underworld. It was task he expected to continue until the end of time. He was the same as he was when he emerged from the Night.</p><p><em>You were not meant to change</em>. His sisters supplied.</p><p>It was true. Charon did not expect anything to change along the rivers. Whatever innovations humanity made during their mortal time, it was all lost once they passed and made their journey down the River Styx.</p><p>Boredom was a foreign concept to Charon. How could he feel boredom when all he existed was for his purpose? The furthest extent of his emotional range was his greed, and even that served a purpose in accounting the dead.</p><p>And even if he was no stranger to wanting, Charon thought himself complete. A solitary figure meant to serve as conduit. A body to stand; arms to row the boat; hands to collect coin. He was a being of utility. A being of purpose. He had no expectations for the future, no desires past what he was given. Why should he? A spade wasn’t expected to dream.</p><p>Until Hermes.</p><p>Hermes, who treated Charon as not only a being of needs but a being of <em>wants</em>. Hermes, who asked him his preferences and opinions on the state of things. Hermes who saw his lust for gold as a charming personality trait, instead of some dread inevitability given the nature of his work.</p><p>Hermes reminded him that there were different meanings of the word <em>alive</em>. Bringing light to follies Charon had considered mere inevitabilities of himself. Hermes brought with him trinkets and ambrosia, plied him with tales from the surface, tales of light, until the golden liquid spilled from the bottles really did taste of radiant sunlight.</p><p>
  <em>And what lies at the end of all this, brother? What have you to gain from wanting? </em>
</p><p>What have any of us to gain, Charon retorted. For he knew even his sisters were not free of opinion. He knew of their little minor prophecies and the small tokens they gave to those who fulfilled them. Why make Death kind and Sleep patient, if not for the benefit of all things.</p><p>Commerce, Hermes once noted, was less a meticulous machine and more a series of misunderstandings. Coins traded for more than their value, copper sold at the wrong price. And maybe all the universe operated on a series of accidents. But if a mistake was made, a tile misplaced on the mosaic, and the artist chose to work around it, as running water flowed past a stubborn rock and split into two streams, who was to say the mistake was not of the initial design, that the river was meant to fork at that exact place?</p><p>Charon was not made to want, to love, but through time he learned both things. So, sisters, was this a cosmic accident or part of their eternal design?</p><p>The three sisters considered his plea, and then with a small metal hook Clotho, the eldest, drew two threads from the tapestry of the universe and placed it in her brother’s hand.</p><p><em>Do not break this thread</em>, she instructed. <em>But I suppose you will be needing proof for your case.</em></p><p>Charon nodded and left his sisters to their weaving. Up and out from the center of all things, Charon moved swiftly like a comet, understanding the flight of birds.</p><p>As he reappeared, he was immediately greeted with Hermes at his side.</p><p>“How did it go, boss? What did they say? Is it over?” His wings fluttered nervously around his head.</p><p>Charon held out his hand. Two strings, one iridescent purple and the other one gold, circled around each other in an inseparable, complicated knot. Their fates, intertwined.</p><p>Hades sighed in defeated and returned to his gloomy house, his steps quickening as Hermes forewent all decorum and leapt into Charon’s arms, planting greedy kisses on his face. Drunk on a victory he wasn’t sure he would have.</p><p>Charon let the threads fall from his hand, where they danced for a moment like spider silk before returning to their respective places in the Fates’ design. His hands were needed elsewhere: at the small of his lover’s back, within the dark curls of his hair.</p><p>He was the boatman of the River Styx. And he was in love, and loved in turn.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Deep in the center of the earth—deep within the halls of Hell—deep within the very fabric of cosmos, where Chaos held the world within their hands, the three Moirai looked at each other and nodded in mutual understanding.</p><p> </p><p>Humans needed gods to be human.</p><p> </p><p>Rocks needed no permission to be shaped by wind and rain. Sheep were content to be led by human and dog alike, and though they feared the wolf they saw no holiness in its carnage.</p><p>Humans, though…humans gave names to the largest and smallest of things. They saw the sun and called it Helios, or sometimes Apollo, and crafted stories about its nightly disappearance. They took the dark expanse of night and made her mother. More than omnipotence, humans wanted to understand what they could not comprehend. So before they had science, they spoke of the world through myth.</p><p>Isn’t Death kinder when one thought of him as a lover? Isn’t Sleep sweeter when one thought of him as a friend?</p><p>Humans needed <em>gods to be human</em>.</p><p>And as Charon and Hermes fell deep into each other within their small corner of Erebus, the Fates smiled among themselves for they knew that this was another story humans would tell each other to have hope. How beautiful it was, to be exchanged between lovers as one headed towards the afterlife.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>